


then rise again, to sink for evermore

by burningdarkfire



Series: yet is there hope (9 Worlds) [4]
Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 02:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14322408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningdarkfire/pseuds/burningdarkfire
Summary: 9 different worlds in which the 2 of them meet.fourth - a pre-canon AU, in which 2B is YoRHa No.2 Type B, 9S is YoRHa No.9 Type S, and humanity has always been on Earth.





	then rise again, to sink for evermore

**Author's Note:**

> When I was first playing the game (without knowing anything about Nier), I thought that maybe the aliens were a lie and both androids and machines were made by humans as part of an experiment. Humans then chilled on the moon while forcing the androids and machines to fight as proxies in a territorial war on Earth despite knowing that they have "souls" and can experience pain, empathy, etc. This is a very self-indulgent exploration inspired by that theory, but I hope you all can also find something to enjoy about it!

_"Reality stained by lies."_

_"Hatred pouring into you."_

_"Overflowing desire."_

_"Your true self."_

(Adam, to 9S)

* * *

9S told himself that he wasn't really snooping.  He was just curious, as any good Scanner model would be, about the heavy security around the YoRHa servers.  He had been performing a routine sync with the Bunker when he'd tripped across some resistance.  It was ever so slight, but it would be bad if the enemy was somehow accessing their information.  He was sure YoRHa would want to know about any breaches. 

So 9S pressed on despite his pod's increasingly desperate warnings.  He scanned through everything as quickly as he could, curious to find what was hidden behind so many barriers.  He took note of some shipping records with a strange number of empty boxes, some inventory files hinting at deleted black box data, and some records of the relationship between the Council of Humanity and YoRHa.

"Looks like info about how the Council of Humanity was formed as part of Project YoRHa," he said as he read.  "Wait, isn't that backwards?"

* * *

9S sat on his bed, thinking over the files he had found.  The Commander had requested to see him in his room, and the unusual location for their meeting left no doubt in his mind that they had noticed him in the servers. 

He was almost surprised to find that he didn't feel nervous as he waited.  For some reason he wasn't afraid of a reprimand.  He wanted answers, and the Commander was the only one who could give them to him.

The Commander entered his room, the door sliding smoothly shut behind her.  9S stood at attention.

"You left quite a trail when you accessed the main server." 

Her voice was cold, but 9S pushed for information anyway.  "I found records stating that the Council of Humanity was established as part of Project YoRHa.  But I'd always heard it was the other way around.  So did YoRHa actually create the Council of Humanity?"

"Yes.  We installed the Council of Humanity's server on the moon."

9S was startled.  The Commander's response came far more quickly than he had anticipated.  He had expected her to deflect or lie.  "But that means -"

The Commander nodded.  "In truth, humans never went to the moon at all.  Mankind lives still on Earth.  Any transmissions received from the moon are just signals we set up in advance.  The only thing there is a small bit of data relating to the human genome."

9S's head pounded.  He had suspected the answer was something like this, but he hadn't expected such a blatant reveal from the Commander.  "But why would you -"

"Humans were already in danger of extinction when the aliens attacked.  Here."  The Commander held out something to him.  "All the details are stored on this memory chip.  If you want to look at it, I won't stop you."

"Wait, you're just giving me this?  But why?"  9S's hand trembled as he accepted.

The Commander ignored his question.  "No one fights without a reason."  She turned to leave, then paused in the doorway.  "And we need a god worth dying for."

She swept out of his room, leaving him clutching the memory chip alone.

* * *

9S read through the documents, unable to suppress the growing feeling of horror that was heaving through his body.  Every word that he read seemed to reveal another terrible secret.

Project Gestalt.  The sickness that rampaged through the human race.  The development of artificial bodies.  The ability to turn human souls into code.  The inadequacies of artificial intelligence for waging war.

9S turned off the screen and sat heavily on his bed.  One by one, he turned off the displays for most of his sensors, until his view was left completely uncluttered. 

He looked at his hands without any enhancements.  Was this how a human might have seen their own hands?

Human.  He was human.  They were all humans, their souls hosted in android bodies. 

He hadn't been made specifically to fight in this war.  He wasn't a creature designed for a great and noble cause. 

He had been someone else once.  He had been torn from his body.  He had been forced to forget himself.  He had been fed lies so that he would be happy to fight, to kill, to die.

9S curled his hands into fists, letting his nails tear through the flesh until he could see the wires underneath.  Warnings flashed in the corner of his eye and his pod hovered worriedly, but he dismissed them all.

The implications were overwhelming.  Questions raced through his mind.  Who was he?  Was there any way to get his human memories back?  Were all androids like this?  What else had YoRHa lied to him about?  What was the war really about? 

Did anyone else know?  No, the files had said the information was restricted to the Commander.  Then -

How was he going to tell 2B?

* * *

9S lay in the darkness.

2B had entered sleep mode, her body still emitting the faintest of hums as her systems performed all the required maintenance and updates.  Normally 9S found the sounds reassuring because they were a reminder that he was no longer alone.  Now, they only unsettled him.  He couldn't stop wondering what kind of human 2B had been.

2B had inquired briefly about his trip to the Bunker when he had returned to rendez-vous with her, but she had never been the type to press for details.  She had simply nodded her head when 9S had said the Commander wanted a personal debrief on their last mission.

9S wasn't quite sure why he hadn't told her yet.  It seemed important to gain more information.  After all, in a twisted way, weren't they actually fighting for themselves?  Maybe they had agreed to this, when they were human.  Maybe they had wanted to be part of the experiment.  Maybe they had known they would be crafted into weapons of war.

Is that something 9S might have done, as a human, in another life?  The thought unnerved him, but he had to admit it was a possibility.  He had no information on what his human self might have done in the past.

Yet the thought got stuck in 9S's head, and he kept looping it over and over.  It seemed ridiculous to say he didn't know his human self at all.  He had no memories of being human, but the focal point of the project had been on the supposed _human soul_.  A soul that he possessed now.  A soul that, surely, still defined who he was.

9S got up, restless.  He was itching to find out more, but the Commander had casually dismissed him when he tried to talk to her again, sending him off on his next mission with 2B.  He wanted to hack the servers again, but a storm was currently preventing him from getting strong enough reception.

Not wanting to disturb 2B, he slipped out of their shared room.  The resistance base they were staying at was quiet during these off-hours.  Most of the lights were dimmed, and the constant downpour of rain gave the entire place a hazy feeling.  9S found the darkness unsettling in particular.  He had never dropped to the parts of the Earth that were in eternal night before.

It was probably more accurate to say that he didn't remember ever doing so.  Suddenly, the frequent memory loss that came with being an android troubled him. 

He stepped out into the courtyard, letting the storm lash at him.  He didn't know how to put it into words - this feeling that he had lost so much, even though he couldn't remember what he had lost.  He felt immensely aware that he had no way of knowing if the way his touch sensors registered rain was anything like how a human body had felt rain.

He stood in the rain for a long while, scarcely registering the cold.  It wasn't until he realized a human would have gone back inside a long time ago that he returned to his room, his android skin shedding the water easily.

* * *

"You're unusually quiet today," 2B said as they trekked through the forest.

9S nearly tripped over a tree root, startled out of his thoughts.  "Huh?"

"We've been walking for hours, and I haven't heard you complain about this rain or the mud once."  2B stepped carefully over the root and consulted with her pod.  "We're almost at the destination.  I need you to be focused on the mission."

"Right."  9S gave himself a mental shake.  He had been overthinking just about everything.  He kept analyzing every sensation with a newly critical focus, trying to catalogue the details of his own android features and wondering how it might be different from a human self.  But it was best that 2B didn't worry.  He still had to decide what he wanted to do.  "The mission comes before everything else."

"Good," 2B said, sounding a little surprised.

* * *

"Hey 2B," 9S said, "Have you ever wondered why we were designed after humans?"

2B sliced the head off of a machine and it exploded, showering them with parts.  "This is not really the appropriate time."

9S absentmindedly side stepped an axe and commanded his sword to fly forward, stabbing another machine through the center.  In the middle of battle, he had realized he wasn't afraid to die.  Was that android programming?  He jumped back as another machine ran at him.  Or was that who he had been as a human, too?  Surely a human would be more afraid to die if they weren't sure they could come back.  He always knew he could reboot with backup data from the Bunker. 

He struck the last machine from behind, slashing into it as 2B kicked it from the other side.  After a cautious glance around to check that the danger was indeed over, 2B handed her sword to her pod to sheathe behind her.

"It's not surprising that our makers made us in their own image.  Stay on mission."

9S followed her as she led the way, threading a path through the ruins of buildings.  As they walked past the machines they had destroyed, he had to suppress a shudder at their blank eyes.  Sometimes the rain streamed down their faces in a way that looked far too much like tears. 

Who was to say they didn't have souls too?

* * *

"This place is a 'movie theatre'."  9S scanned through all the data available in the YoRHa archives.  "Humans used to go to these places to watch videos for fun.  I don't detect any enemies, but the parts we're looking for should be somewhere in there."

"Alright.  Stay on high alert."

As they passed through the doors, 9S looked around.  Nothing looked familiar to him - but of course, nothing on Earth ever had.  Yet he must have seen something like this before.  He must have gone to movies for fun too.  He might have gone with people from his family unit or even his friends.  Did he have friends, once? 

9S could barely even comprehend the idea.  How could any bond compare to fighting beside each other, seeing each other bleed, holding each other as they died?  Movies must have been incredible things, to serve as bonding experiences.

They walked through the empty building, peering through one room after another.  The place was dark and muted, quiet except for the dim cacophony of the storm outside.

"This place is huge," 9S said after they had searched through their sixth auditorium without any luck.  "Imagine it full of people, all watching movies together."

"It's useless to think of such things." 

2B's reply was unsurprisingly dry, yet 9S found himself responding forcefully.  "It's not!"   

His outburst surprised both himself and 2B.  She looked at him strangely and he shrugged, struggling to find words.  "Once the war is over, us soldiers won't have anything left to do.  Everything will change.  And when that happens, we should watch a movie together.  We should make new memories.  I'll even let you pick which one.  There are still tons saved in the archives."

"A movie?"  2B repeated skeptically.

"What, not interested?  We could sit in a theatre just like this."

2B opened the door to yet another theatre.  She paused, hesitating over the threshold, and looked back at 9S.  "Okay.  When that day comes, I'm all for it."

9S blinked.  That was possibly the most emotional thing 2B had ever said to him.  "That's a promise, right?"

"Yeah." 

2B continued through the door as if nothing had happened, and 9S scrambled to catch up.

* * *

9S stared blankly at 2B's back as he followed her back through the forest.  A thought had just occurred to him. 

He had only been active as a YoRHa unit for three years, but the war had already been raging for nearly seven

thousand

years.

His human soul predated that.  All human souls did.  After the last human body had crumpled to the sickness, only androids roamed the Earth.  And then the Aliens came, and with them, the machines.

9S bit back a crazed giggle.  It seemed unbelievable.  God, how many times he must have died in seven thousand years.  How many machines he must have killed.  He could only remember the past three years, and it was already more than he could count.  Had he ever been anything other than a soldier? 

Maybe the ones that had lived for thousands of years were lucky.  He had heard of androids like that.  Androids who remembered what it was like to walk among humans.  Did they know?  Did they remember who they were, once?  Or had they forgotten?  After being in an android body for so long, how could anyone remember what it meant to be human?

If 9S could find one of them, maybe they would know enough to help him escape.  To get away from YoRHa.  To tell him what it meant to have a human soul.

But maybe it didn't matter, 9S thought hysterically.  Maybe it didn't matter that he knew they were all human now.  Their memories would surely be wiped again, after the war ended.  If the war ended.  Anything that was happening now didn't matter.  They could live their lives as if they knew nothing about war, just like they lived now as if they knew nothing but war.

They could forget all of this.

"9S?" 

He blinked.  2B was standing in front of him.  They were both stationary, getting pelted by the never-ending rain.  He realized his sensors were registering cold.  The temperature was still dropping.

"You stopped walking.  Is everything okay?"

9S stared at 2B. 

She stood patiently, waiting for him to answer the question with concern.  Drops of water streamed down her face, dripping from her chin.  Her lips were wet.

"Yes," 9S heard himself say.  "Everything is okay."

2B gave him a long look.  "Stay focused on our mission.  I don't know what you're thinking about, but don't stray from the objectives the Commander sends us."  Her voice softened.  "Please."

She waited until 9S nodded before she started walking again.  9S followed. 

No.  He didn't want to forget 2B.  He knew his memories didn't belong to him, not anymore, but he didn't want to forget 2B.  He was sure of that.   

He realized there must have been other things, before, that he hadn't wanted to forget.  He must have treasured other people in the past seven thousand years.  Now they were all gone.  But now, right now, it was almost easy to believe that the war was worth it, just for him to have met 2B. 

* * *

"I've never seen snow before."

2B stood in the center of the resistance base, staring upwards at the sky.  The rain had frozen, turned into snow that was now whirling through the base.  Resistance fighters rushed around them, shouting orders to each other as they prepared to close the base against the storm.

A snowflake stuck to 2B's eyelash.  9S laughed as she blinked in surprise, a small smile on her face. 

His decision had been made a long time ago, on the day he had met 2B.  He just hadn't realized it until now.  He didn't need to tell her.  He didn't want to rebel against the Commander.  He would continue to serve YoRHa as he was ordered to do, as long as he could stay by 2B's side.

"Get inside or we're leaving you guys out here!"  Someone was yelling at them, but even that couldn't startle the soft expression from 2B's face.

It didn't matter if they were human or not.  Nothing mattered, except 2B.

* * *

The next few days were as relaxed as any 9S could remember.  The storm continued to make it impossible to reach the Bunker.  The resistance camp had effectively sealed itself off from the outside world to avoid the snow, so there weren't even any fetch quests for them to do.

2B had spent the first two days listening to his chatter, responding here and there but insisting that she was most interested in performing maintenance on herself and all her gear.  9S helped her most of the time, running diagnostics, happy with the familiar routine.

On the third day, after everything imaginable had been upkept, 9S had asked her if she wanted to try watching a movie.  With nothing else to do, 2B had agreed. 

Now they sat on the bed together, the quiet hum of their bodies indistinguishable from each other as 9S's pod projected the video onto the opposing wall.

2B had picked a movie at random and 9S had to admit he was relieved there was no mention of war in it whatsoever.  Instead, it seemed to show a human courtship ritual, as the two lead characters slowly established a partnership with each other.

"I want to try that," 9S said suddenly.

2B turned towards him, her voice neutral.  "We weren't built for such things like moving our lips together."

"Let's try it anyway," 9S insisted.  "Come on, 2B, what harm can it do?  Weren't we modelled after them?"

2B seemed to consider it for a few moments.  "Well, alright."  She closed her eyes.

Suddenly 9S's heart started racing.  Trying not to overthink it, he scooted closer, wrapping an arm around 2B and pulling her closer as he leaned in.

Their lips touched.  2B was soft, softer than it felt like any combat android had the right to be.  9S tried to mimic the motions he had seen in the movie.

"Hmmm."  After a few moments, 2B pulled back.  "How was that?"

"Underwhelming," 9S had to admit.  He tried not to let his disappointment show.  "I suppose you're right that we weren't built for such things."

His chest hurt as he let go of 2B and turned his attention back to the movie.  The characters were making declarations of passion for each other.  It was so far from his own reality.  Prohibited or not, there were clearly some human emotions out of reach for them.

"9S," 2B said gently.  She touched him at the elbow.  He looked at her in surprise.  "We were built to bring glory to mankind.  There are many missions where your abilities as a Scanner are of paramount importance.  Just stay focused, okay?"

"Of course," 9S said.  He knew this was how 2B said she cared.  He clasped his other hand over hers.  "Don't worry about me, 2B.  I'm honored to serve by your side.  I know what is most important."

* * *

"Word around the camp is that the snow will clear up in a day or two," 2B said, closing the door behind her as she re-entered their room.  They had been cooped up inside for over a week now and she had taken to frequently patrolling the base, despite the fact that nothing could get through the storm doors short of a drastic explosion.  "We can finally get word back to the Bunker again."

"Right." 

2B looked at the data his pod was displaying.  "Are you still working on your study?" 

"It's something to pass the time."  At least, that's what he had told 2B, to explain why he spent so much time cataloguing what it felt like to be an android.  He was familiar with the regular maintenance routines, sure, and he was comfortable in the hacking space, but all the YoRHa-provided information he had was strictly functional.  He wanted to describe what it _was_ to feel pain when he cut his finger open - when he didn't rest for over 36 hours - when he held 2B's gloved hand in his own.

9S had thought about it a lot, with all the spare downtime he had had.  He had realized he was selfish.  He didn't want to give up 2B.  But it still didn't feel right to do nothing.  Even if this was the choice humanity had made - maybe the choice he had made, for himself, thousands of years ago when he was human - to fight even if it meant giving up their humanity - maybe they deserved to make the choice again, as who they were now.

Even if he never acted on what he knew then maybe someone else in the future could.  When the connection to the Bunker was back up, he would try hacking the main server again, to see if there were any other files he had missed the last time, and then hide all of the information he had wherever he could.  He would keep doing his experiments and his writing in his downtime and add the data to the stash.

It was a good plan, he thought, and having a plan stabilized him.  Life could mostly go back to normal.  Everything would be alright.

* * *

The skies were finally clear. 

9S raced along the main YoRHa server, again ignoring his pod's pestering voice in his ear.  There was no turning back now.  He thought he knew a place in the hacking space where he could build his own fortress.  The information would remain hidden to the usual server defense mechanics, yet it could be found in the future.

He rounded a corner and suddenly skidded to a stop when white blocks loomed before him.  Someone else had already stored their information in this hiding place.

9S probed at it carefully, but his caution was unnecessary.  At his first touch, the entire area's defense turned off.  It seemed to recognize him.

A sense of dread overwhelmed him.

He moved forward in a daze, already suspecting what he would find. 

9S wandered the collection of files. 

This was why the Commander had given him the memory chip so easily.

How many times?

All the files here were his.

How many times had he discovered the secret of humanity?  How many times had he tried to hide this information away, only to find out it was already here? 

Alerts flashed all over his screen, warning him that his physical body was under attack.  He had sustained heavy damage.

How many times had he died for this already?

* * *

9S exited the hacking sequence.  Sensation rushed back, replacing the white space.

There was a pain in his chest.

He looked down.  His chest was red, stained with blood.

A drop of water fell on his lips.  He licked it.  It was salty.

Someone was crying.

He looked up.

2B.  He was in 2B's lap, 2B was cradling him, and 2B was crying.

"Hey," 9S said, even though it hurt to talk.  It was funny how he always forgot what dying felt like.  He didn't remember it at all, even though it must have happened so many times.  He wondered how many of those times had been at 2B's hand.

He hated seeing her so upset.

"Everything that lives is designed to end," he said slowly, trying to find the words to comfort her.  "But we're trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death."  He tried to reach up and wipe the tears from 2B's face, but he couldn't quite seem to control his arm.  His vision was fading.  "It's okay, 2B, it's okay.  I'll see you in the next life.  This is what we were built for.  You ... and me."

* * *

_Thus shall our souls be saved.  Forever and ever.  Forever and ever._

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to know what other theories people made up as they were playing the game, haha. I can't have been the only one who was disappointed when there were actually aliens!


End file.
